Trauma and Activism: Using a Postcolonial Feminist Lens to Understand the Experiences of Service Providers Who Support Racialized Immigrant Women’s Mental Health and Wellbeing

Judith A. MacDonnell (), Mahdieh Dastjerdi, Nimo Bokore and Wangari Tharao
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Judith A. MacDonnell: School of Nursing, York University, 3rd Floor HNES Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Mahdieh Dastjerdi: School of Nursing, York University, 3rd Floor HNES Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Nimo Bokore: School of Social Work, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel by Dr., Dunton Tower, #618, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
Wangari Tharao: Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre, 2 Carleton Street, Suite 500, Toronto, ON M5B 1J3, Canada

IJERPH, 2025, vol. 22, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: The global Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to the urgency of addressing entrenched structural dynamics such as racialization, gender, and colonization shaping health inequities for diverse racialized people. Canadian community-based research with racialized immigrant women recognized the need to enhance service provider capacity using a strengths-based activism approach to support client health and wellbeing. In this study, we aimed to understand the impacts of this mental health promotion practice on service providers and strategies to support them. Through purposeful convenience sampling, three focus groups were completed with 19 service providers working in settlement and mental health services in Toronto, Canada. Participants represented varied ethnicities and work experiences; most self-identified as female and racialized, with experiences living as immigrant women in Canada. Postcolonial feminist and critical mental health promotion analysis illuminated organizational and structural dynamics contributing to burnout and vicarious trauma that necessitate a focus on trauma- and violence-informed care. Transformative narratives reflected service provider resilience and activism, which aligned with and challenged mainstream biomedical approaches to mental health promotion. Implications include employing a postcolonial feminist lens to identify meaningful and comprehensive anti-oppression strategies that take colonialism, racialization, gender, and ableism and their intersections into account to decolonize nursing practices. Promoting health equity for diverse racialized women necessitates focused attention and multilevel anti-oppression strategies aligned with critical mental health promotion practices.

Keywords: racialized; immigrant women; mental health promotion; activism; trauma; service providers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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